Ben Pollard
Benedict Thomas Royle Pollard is a main character on The Gospel According to Ben Pollard. The series follows Pollard's life through home, school, and recently college. Biography Within the series, Ben is depicted as a thirty two year old who narrates his life to the audience each episode. Ben lives in the quiet village of Bangor On Dee, Wrexham, and has attended The Special Education Centre, Johnstown Junior School, Johnstown Infant School, St Joseph's Catholic and Anglican High School and Dorin Park School. He most recently became a National Star College CAPA Group student at National Star College. 1995 - 2004 When the series begins, Ben is living a quiet life in Wrexham where we first meet his family Anna, David and Jake. As the show progresses, we are introduced to further members of his family including Jill, John, Rita and Keith. We also see Ben's early school life at The Special Education Centre in Wrexham where we meet characters including Ben's future "girlfriend" Samantha Maxwell. In 1999, we learn that the Special Education Centre is being demolished completely, thus we see Ben and his friends begin a new school chapter at Johnstown Infant School. By this point, all the main characters including Ben's family remain, and we are also introduced to new families including The Murrays, The Battys, and The Hopkinsons. In the episode Junior School: Sneak Peek, we get our first glimpse of Johnstown Junior School, which is set as the precursor for the next part of the series. In 2000, Ben starts at Johnstown Junior School and we are introduced to many new characters including Glyn Williams, Susan Pearson, Andrea Griffiths, and many others. In the school year 2001 - 2002, Ben becomes part of the School Council there. As the 2002-2003 school year looms, we are first introduced to new characters including Gavin Arnett, who has now been on the show as a recurring character for ten years. We are also introduced to Owain Smith who eventually becomes Ben's hero. Owain was the reason Ben started playing the keyboard in 2005. In July 2004, the Johnstown chapter of Ben's story ends as he prepares to leave Johnstown Juniors along with his friends. Along with the other Year 6 pupils, he participates in the Leavers Service. During the service, Samantha (due to her shyness) starts to cry when it is her turn to speak which forces her to withdraw from the service and Ben to take over for her. 2004-2011 In September 2004, Ben starts a new school chapter at St Joseph's Catholic and Anglican High School. We are introduced to Sheri Stott, who acts as Ben's support worker there, as well as Anne-Marie Roberts and Lorraine Wyn. We are also introduced to Ben's form tutor Ian Fidler, the Head of Support Learning Kath Evans and the head teacher John Kenworthy, plus various others. Catherine Powell, who has been a guest star character since the Johnstown episodes, has her role increased from here onwards. Interestingly, building work to revamp the school was to commence in July 2005 for a year, which resulted in the teachers and the students at St Joseph's {this went the same for filming of the series too) transferring to The Groves High School in Wrexham temporarily. Eventually the Sontley Road site opened back up again in September 2006. However, during the 2006-2007 school year, Ben starts to feel as if St Joseph's is not the right school for him. So after some negotiations, he leaves there in February 2007 and moves to Dorin Park School in Chester, giving the historic town it's most significant period of appearance to date. When he gets to Dorin Park we meet a whole new cast of characters including Ben's new school friends Tanya Hughes, Hannah Bird, Emily Slobom Christopher Holmes, plus new teachers Carole Eyres, Liz Roberts, Pauline Sallis, Chris Karling, Di Brown and others. During the 2007-2008 school year, Ben became editor of the school's newsletter, a role that he had taken for four years. While doing the newsletter Ben sometimes faced scrutiny from his fellow pupils who perhaps thought that he should write about things such as sport (a subject which Ben heavily dislikes). He also took part in a residential trip to the Children's Adventure Farm Trust. Back at home, grief arose when Ben and Jake's cousin Alex was tragically killed in a car crash. In the aftermath of Alex's death, Ben was forced to make the decision of whether to attend her funeral. In the end, he did. Alex's death meant that her hometown of York, while still featured in the show, is featured less often than in previous years. In September 2008, Ben, and some of his friends moved onto the 6th form area of Dorin Park. During this time, many supporting characters had their roles increased. One of the most notable of these was Lynn Littlejohn who had helped Ben with his newsletter for three years. In May 2009, Allison Royle died. Although her death was not as publicized as Alex Pickering's, her death still left a big gap in the Pollard Family's lives. In July 2009, Ben's form tutor Liz Roberts told him that a local Chester publication called Inside Upton was looking for a young writer to publish articles about the school for residents. Ben eagerly agreed to this and soon became one of the busiest students at Dorin Park. By September 2009, new characters were introduced including new students Keiron Mahon and Craig Huxley and new guitar-playing teaching assistant Tom Robinson. In this year, Ben continued to write for the newsletter as well as his new found job working for Inside Upton. One of the most interesting things about that year of episodes is that even though Ben was in a different class to Tanya, Emily, Hannah, Chris and Rob, they were still considered main characters. The next year was Ben's final year at Dorin Park, in which he was once again in a class with all his friends and as before, more roles were increased and new characters were born, including Emma Catherall, a very pretty supply teacher who filled in for Di Brown who left the school temporarily to have surgery, and Jonathan Wilkins, who was planning to found a radio station for the school. (Whether the radio station ever came to fruition remains to be seen). Also during this year, Hannah Bird left the school and the series due to attending her new college more than she attended Dorin Park. One of the many highlights of this year was when the school had a Spanish afternoon. The 6th formers were doing a version of the French opera Carmen. ''Ben was due to play Don Jose, and Clare Price, who Ben had been trying to resist a crush on, was down to play the title character. Ben was horrified by the situation, but somehow got through it. Eventually, it was nearly time to leave Dorin Park. Ben, Tanya, Emily, Chris, Rob and their other fellow leavers had a special leavers celebration in the episode entitled Chester Cathedral - Leavers Unite, which featured the only appearance to date of Chester Cathedral. A couple of weeks later, there was another leavers celebration, this time at Dorin Park, where Ben made a speech thanking all his fellow leavers and all the staff for their help to him as well (he even accidentally told everyone, including his mum, how much he fancied Clare. The last day was very emotional for all the leavers, but the Dorin Park episodes of the series remain some of the most popular. '''2011 - present' For a long time, Ben had been facing problems with his funding for his dream college, the National Star College in Cheltenham. However, near the end of his last term at Dorin Park, Ben finally recieved the funding he wanted and started at the College on 7th September 2011. At the Star College, he made lots of new friends, including Adam Clark, Sasha Parker Cody Hunt Jasper Farrow Jones Cumming and Student Union president Cally Ann McEvoy. As well as this, after a two year absence from the show where he only made occasional guest appearances, Robert Surrey returned as a main character. Becky Pierce, who was at Dorin Park for four years, also returned as a recurring character. In June 2012, Ben and a group of friends did a production based around the Paralympics called Star Shine. They took the production around five schools in the Cheltenham area as well as performing at the Parabola Arts Centre for all their families. Ben is currently due to start his second year at the college. Personality/Appearance Ben's personality is quite multi-dimensional to say the least. When around his family, he is cheerful around people he knows well. However, he can be quite distant among his peers, and is easily angered at people who try to annoy him. Ben uses a wheelchair due to having Spina Bifida. He also used a swivel walker in his childhood, but it hasn't been seen since the St Joseph's years. Relationships Samantha Maxwell Ben and Samantha's relationship is one of the most interesting relationships on the show. Samantha had been harbouring a not so secret crush on Ben since they were both at Johnstown Junior School. From Ben's side, he has been confused about whether he feels the same or not. Faye Wigan Faye WIgan was in the same year as Ben and Samantha at St Joseph's. Although she never made that many appearances, she made it clear that she had a crush on Ben. However, Sheri Stott later told Ben that Faye felt like this towards most boys, even older ones like the DT teacher Lambert. Navigational . Category:Main Characters Category:The National Star College students Category:Dorin Park School students Category:St Joseph's Catholic and Anglican High School studemts Category:Dynamic Category:Characters from Wrexham Category:Johnstown school students Category:Pollard Family Category:The Special Education Centre students Category:Characters Category:CAPA students Category:Menu Reps Category:Antigone cast members Category:Star Shine cast members Category:Dinner On The Winner attendees